Solemn Solomons Cemeteries: WWII Burial Practices in the South Pacific

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "A Decade of DPAA: Challenges and Opportunities to the Accounting Mission", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The U.S. military commenced Operations Watchtower and Toenails with little planning for battlefield burials. In the Solomon Islands, the Allied forces established ad hoc cemeteries on several islands and developed rudimentary plans for dealing with the hundreds of service members killed in action. As a result of these hasty burials, numerous individuals reportedly buried in these cemeteries could not be located following World War II. Mapping these cemeteries and ground-truthing the layouts and locations of these cemeteries may be a solution to locating the remains of these missing service members.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Decade of DPAA: Challenges and Opportunities to the Accounting Mission   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow